Elie
Buzyn

Elie Buzyn

Élie was born in 1929 in the city of Lodz, which from April 1940 onwards was home to one of Poland's largest ghettos. He survived there with his parents and sister, until they were deported to Auschwitz in 1944. Elie was then 15 years old. His parents were immediately murdered and he lost track of his sister. When the camp was liquidated, he survived the death marches to Buchenwald, where, like Armand Bulwa, he was one of the nine hundred adolescents who survived. After the war, Élie had nothing left. He stayed in France for a while, and managed to find his sister and one of his uncles in Paris, but he couldn't bear staying any longer on the stained soil of Europe. So, he left for Israel to build a new world. After working on a kibbutz for eight years, he decided to return to France to study medicine, and he became an orthopedic surgeon. The fact that his feet froze in Buchenwald after the death march inspired him to study this specialty. He explains how hard it was for him to rebuild himself. To do so, he had to "put on blinders", to prevent him from looking back or even sideways. Thinking back about his past and what he went through would make him want to commit suicide. He had three children with his wife Etty, but he never talked about his deportation with them. He considered that this would be like injecting them with his own pain "intravenously". They knew, but didn't talk about it. And then, time went by and eight grandchildren were born. Time and the birth of new generations made him see things differently. The grandchildren started asking questions. One day, his son announced that he would like to go to Auschwitz to see the place where his grandparents were murdered. Élie decided to go with him. When his grandchildren each turned 15, he took them there. Fifteen is meaningful as it was the age Elie was when he was deported. His grandchildren represent an unbroken chain of generations, something the Nazis tried to destroy, but failed. [...+]

My visit to Elie

Extraits

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Elie

« Telling my children would have been like injecting them with intravenous poison. »
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Elie

« My father had read Mein Kampf and said what Hitler says doesn't matter, he'll never do it. »

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